MegPiece5

The One ThingAbout Paul by Meg Rice

I adore almost everything about my husband, Paul. He is generous with friends, family and strangers. He shows his love and caring through action; doing the yard work, filling the gas tank in my car for me, taking the pulse of family finances and paying the bills, and helping me with the laundry. He is strong of body and mind. Paul remembers everything and, therefore, is a walking lesson inhistory, science, or art, take your pick.

This man is smart about all things involving cause and effect, drawing conclusions and predicting. Listening to news, he predicts future excuses for a new war and where it will break out, financial crashes and other self-inflicted human-made disasters through his ability to “put the pieces together or recognize when history is repeating itself.

Paul can fix-anything broken or teach himself to make repairs if the need presents itself. He’s funny, kind, forgiving, and always acts with the highest integrity. His faith in God is unshakable and I respect his commitment to live by the lessonsJ esus taught. My professional respect for Paul began the first time he taught art to my firstgraders in my Ohio classroom. My respect for him increased as he wisely parented our daughter and son. The seeds of my love for Paul were planted when observing his respectful manner with everyone he met. It continues to grow as do our years together. But best of all, he’s so stinking cute. He still has his little boy face and pinch-able cheeks, despite his many decades on this earth. In a word, cute!

BUT…if asked,“What bugs you?”, one thing instantly comes to mind:

What bugs me is Paul’s insistence upon folding our clean socks in a manner that, I believe, is abusive to the socks and eventually to the wearer of said socks. He aligns two clean socks at the ribbed neck establishing them as a pair. This isn’t secure enough as he allows the toes to dangle freely kicking at air. Woe to the hapless piece of clothing unfortunate enough to find itself within striking distance in that laundry basket. To avoid such scenes, he lets the socks know-who’s-boss in the next step. It is this step, this mutilation, that sets my teeth on edge, makes me cringe in discomfort and race to undo the damage before it becomes permanent. Do not let small children read this part, if you are reading this aloud, please, send them from the room immediately. I will wait.

For the next step, when the ribbed necks are align, Paul folds down the upper edge of one sock over the other, creating a cuff of sorts, rendering the two socks inseparable. Paul’s belief, that socks remain paired by this means alone, is unshakable. Conversely, once I have aligned the ribbed necks, I simply lay the matched pair together, fold them over at their mid-point and stack them by color. It’s quick. It takes no brain cell activity and it works.

Paul contends that he detests fumbling in a sock drawer in a futile attempt to find the mate for the exact shade of brown to match the offending single sock in hand. In the past, I’ve suggested that if he rummaged amongst the pairs less forcibly, perhaps the socks would not separate in the first place. He says, if he doesn’t sock roll them into pairs, they are on the loose the next morning.

I truly can’t imagine, and frankly don’t want to know, what is going on in Paul’s sock drawer at night to detach one sock from another. Mine, I am proud to report, just lay around like well mannered socks, waiting for dawn’s light to greet them upon the daily opening of the sock drawer. I always find them neatly stacked, by color, with looks of anticipation, on their little woven faces, as they wonder, “Will she pick me today?” Paul’s drawer on the other hand, resembles a nest of snakes most mornings. He suggests they are having a wild convention or party overnight. Again, I would rather not go there.

This whole business, whether to roll or fold, has been a point of contention since the first week of our married life, with the folding of the first load. If Paul would stop with that hideous habit, if he could learn a new sock folding drill,if he could just call it good, I would express delight rather than defensive horror each time he announces, “Meg, I folded the laundry for you.”

I am probably treading on sacred ground here, when you think about it. I mean, from whom do you suppose he learned the sock rolling trick in the first place? His mother! Right? No doubt, Paul revisits fond memories every time he takes two unfolded socks in hand. Memories that take him back to his childhood, to the first washday his mother “let him” help fold the family laundry. Wash day was a major daily undertaking for a woman with eight children, a washtub, a mangle and no electric drier. Teaching Paul, the eldest son, to fold laundry was, no doubt, a matter of survival on her part. Therefore, it is quite possibly wrong of me to chide him in this matter. Yet, I simply can’t help myself.

It was not until I repeatedly and fervently requested that he not sock-roll my precious socks, as he did his own, that the abuse finally ceased. It was not until I explained my irritation at racing across the playground to a fallen child with warm woolen socks alternately creeping down my calves and coming to a final bunchy rest upon my ankles, that Paul got my point. Every gust of icy, Kansas wind breezed past to chill my bony ankles a vibrant shade of blue. With every gust of wind, I could be heard to curse beneath my breath, “I detest sock-rollers! I detest sock-rollers! ” To my cries of protest, Paul initially responded, “Just wear boots and your socks will stay up all day.” I did not feel heard!

It took years, for Paul to break himself of what he considered a helpful habit. Yet, I am happy to say, that Paul has finally mended his ways, our marriage continues to cause our children no concern, and the elastic in my socks is as healthy and resilient as the day they came home from the store.